[Source: CNN Entertainment] Occasionally a movie gets misleadingly marketed for understandable reasons, and so it is with a sweetly sentimental film from writer-director John Krasinski that the ads make look like a madcap romp. The best parts should strike a mildly receptive chord with parents while potentially boring younger kids, a prescription that could subject the movie’s imaginary friends to a harsh reality once audiences in summer-movie mode get a good look at it. After his breakout success with (whose delayed prequel will arrive in June), Krasinski shifts toward a PG-rated movie built around animated characters, infused with a family-friendly vibe.
Yet it’s no accident that the classic James Stewart movie at one point plays on the TV, since seeks the same whimsical tone, while owing perhaps its strongest debt to the 1995 film adaptation of – which also focuses on a young girl dealing with grief, loss and uncertainty – brightened by detours into the fantastic. Bea (Cailey Fleming, delivering a splendid anchoring performance after growing up among ) has already lost her mom, and now her dad (Krasinski) is hospitalized as he awaits heart surgery. Forced to stay with her grandma (Fiona Shaw), Bea discovers a neighbor (Ryan Reynolds in kinder, gentler mode) who works to find new homes for imaginary friends (or IFs) whose kids have grown up and forgotten them.
The imaginary friends, not surprisingly, turn out to be an eclectic and colorful lot, featuring a wide asso.